What to do if you suspect a fault in XenServer

Raising issues and reporting bugs against XenServer

Developers who discover issues with XenServer and have joined the Citrix Ready Partnering programs can report issues against XenServer via Citrix’s normal support processes which can escalate such issues into XenServer Engineering to be addressed. Partners should contact Citrix Ready in the first instance to discuss the support options available and availability of support keys. Citrix Ready can also arrange support for issues with other Citrix products which a developer working with the XenServer APIs may be working with e.g. XenDesktop, CloudPlatform or Netscaler. Citrix Ready Access level is free of charge although support options are broader for those in higher tiers.

Citrix Partners with TRM Support

If you are a developer at a Citrix Partner with TRM (Technical Relationship Manager) support you should contact your TRM in the first instance rather than Citrix Support to report issues with XenServer.

Citrix Partners with a Direct XenServer Engineering Relationship

Developers at partners with a direct relationship with XenServer Engineering who have been issued with tracker accounts for an integration project should raise SDK inquiries or enquiries via their tracker account. Please note general XenServer issues or customer issues can not be accepted via this mechanism.

ISV Developers Dealing with Customers with Problems with XenServer

If you are a developer at an ISV (Independent Software Vendor) and are dealing with a customer issue that you believe is caused by XenServer and your customer has Citrix Support, you must ask your customer to raise the support ticket with Citrix Support. Please ask the customer to include your contact details and permission for Citrix Support to involve you in their support case. This is particularly important if the issue is hard to reproduce without the use of your product. If you are a Citrix Partner ISV working on a XenServer integration project please do highlight the case to your Partner Engineering contact.

Bugtools – Server Status Reports

Developers wishing to raise issues via Citrix Support or wishing to debug XenServer issues themselves should be familiar with bugtools (“Server Status Reports”).

Prior to any investigation or reporting an issue to Citrix Support we recommend developers always upload their bugtools to Citrix’s auto-support site TaaS, which runs many checks for known issues and hotfix availabilities and will highlight many issues involving misconfigurations. TaaS is available to anyone who has signed up for a Citrix account, not just paying customers, some further information can be found here http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX131233.

A bugtool and step-by-step reproduction instructions are a pre-requisite for reporting a XenServer issue via any mechanism.

Self-help

Developers who encounter problems when using the API of with XenServer in general may wish to refer to:

The Citrix XenServer SDK Forum, the historical questions asked in this forum provide a reasonable FAQ of many common issues and misunderstanding new developers encounter – the search facility is pretty good

Ensuring Developers work on fully updated XenServer Versions

Faults in XenSever are addressed by regular HotFixes issued by Citrix. We would advise those developing against XenServer API to use a fully patched and updated installation of XenServer where possible. Advice on how to receive automatic notification of hotfix availability is given on this page; information on how to incorporate such functionality into products is also given for developers who wish to ensure their products are deployed on XenServer versions with appropriate patches.

Checking Which Version Of XenServer Or Its Components Are Installed

If you are testing with multiple versions or frequently re-installing XenServer it may be useful to familiarise yourself with the CLI xe command:

host-param-get uuid=<host-uuid> param-name=software-version

which will report the version of all components of a XenServer installation.